Shared research practices in music. Attempts and challenges from Portugal

Abstract

In the last few years, a group of researchers of the branch of the University of Aveiro of the Instituto de Etnomusicologia — Centro de Estudos em Música e Dança (INET-md/UA) — has been involved in ethnographic collaborative activities with vulnerable social groups. The shifting from research practices centred in the identification, analysis and explanation of events, to what we define as shared research practices, is deeply influencing the research group. Its priorities are increasingly decided through a dialogue between the academia and non-academic communities, originating an ecological process of construction of knowledges in music that goes towards knowledge de-hierarchization. This process is still in its initial stage and sometimes it has contradictory aspects. It is influenced by disagreements between the needs of the academia (who marks short research production times) and those of the communities (who need long-term sustainability). But at the same time, it is defined by unexpected and fruitful encounters.